OCIP trip to Batam

The trip was just awsums.
We were supposed to go to a school in batam to build a fence becus
there was a dangerous slope behind the school and they needed a fence to
prevent students from falling in.
We set off on sunday with T12 to batam on Jet Raider.

We met at harbourfront centre at 8 where i saw myat,hue,tjakra and prem when
i just entered the building.
We then had breakfast at macs and went to the boarding area.
blah blah uneventful then we went to batam and then took a bus to
harris resort.
We didnt have our room keys at first so our bags were left in the conference room
while we went to the school to check out the site.
I always thought that we would not have to do anything much on the
first visit to the school, i was wrong.
When we arrived at the site we had an hour of stoning.
We were preparing for things and people were just slacking arnd the compound.
There were only a few kids in the school becus it was sunday.
Then, when they brought to us our hoes and laid out the area to dig,
we went to dig.
It was tough shits.
Bloody hell back breaking job.
It was only the first day and we had to dig a around 40m trench.
we finished it the very day we started it.
It was hard work.
Things would have gotten alot faster if tjakra would apply his combo
method alot earlier.
He would use his hoe to loosen the soil, then scoop everything into my shovel then i dispose of the soil.
It was very effective, but we only discovered it at the last few minutes.
the only ones who were using it was only me and tjakra.
But still it was very useful and we managed to finish it.

The school was only half completed, it have a three storey high roof
but only have its first level.
There was no second level at all and metal bars were still protruding
from the walls becus the building was incomplete.
One of the boys even hurt his eye becus of the metal bars.
In the rural areas of batam, the contruction workers do not have
any bulldozers or whatever machines that can help in contruction.
They use hoes, shovels and picks.
Even mixing cement was manual, there wasnt any cement mixers.

One awesome thing was that during the last fifteen minutes or so
mdm damo asked us to pack up and go.
But we didnt.
We continued digging and believed that we could finish and we did.
We then head back to the bus all muddy and tired.
Then headed back to our resort.
What kind of contruction workers stay in resorts?
As in, we were here not to have fun and live like kings.
Still we lived at a 'four-star' resort which was VERY different
from what the people in batam are experiencing.
When we got back to the resort, we showered and had our dinner.
luckily i was in given the same room with prem and myat.
After dinner we went to explore the resort and found quite a number
of facilities there.
There was a bowling alley, squash court, snooker table, pool table,
table tennis table and gym.
Went to play bowling, boring shits man only myat to play with me.
Then he claims to be playing for the first time, w/e.
But the bowling alley was quite old.
The music played there were ten yr old techno music which
irritated prem alot.
After we finished our bowling game thats when we saw foosk,jordan and
shannon coming in.
When they saw us going they also decided not to play and go
off.
We then headed to john' room to sit arnd and talk.
But when we reached there everyone in the room was already sleeping.
=/
oh wells then me myat and prem jus headed back to our room to sleep.

The next day we woke up had breakfast and headed to the school.
We realised that the trench we dug yesterday wasnt deep enough,
and since our cement wasnt here yet we continued digging.
Today there were alot of kids in the school studying,
and they were very lively and happy and all.
But our people were frowning and bored waiting for the cement and stuff.
While they were digging the trench deeper there was a spare hoe,
and i used it to build a flight of stairs.
I decided to build the stairs becus there was a slope which was wet and slippery
and it can be very dangerous if u slip and fall right into the trench.
Hence i began building the steps, then jonathan and brian helped me
in building it.
I was quite sad when people said that i was wasting my time
building the steps, but still i built 4 steps which
made the slope safe enough.
When the cement and bricks came i went to help out around in
building the foundation.
At first, there was a tree that was in the way of our fence, hence
hue and dominic went to cut it down...
The cement was used as if its free flow, they just poured buckets of cement in the ground and placed bricks above it.
Fortunately it was only the first layer, and the subsequent layers
were added on with careful leveling of cement and placing of bricks.
Every 3 meters there would be an 80 by 80 gap for the poles of the
fence.
The poles of the fence were bloody hell hard to cut with jus a saw.
We were supposed to cut a 6m pole into 3 pieces which then would be
placed in the 80 by 80 holes that would be holding it.
Thinner metal wires were also made into a stand that would hold the
pole in position while cement was poured around the stand
that supported the pole.
Making the stand was hard shit.
You have to bend,cut,straighten,pull,align the wires in a series
of ways to make the stand.
straightening the wires was the toughest one.
Come to think of it i have taken part in all the processes of the fence
making.
The fence was around 30++m long and they were working on the
side where my steps were not used yet first.
So my stairs wasnt much useful until later when they worked
at the other end.
That time i was part of the laying bricks department where i
laid bricks as the foundation.
Then later on i would be helping to straighten the wires then cut
it.
We did quite alot for the day when we laid bricks to around 7/8
of everything by the end of the day.
Gerard used my steps and he said it was useful.
yay.
We then went back to our hotel and it was a shitty night.
shit happened.
There was like some hunting game where everyone hunted for one guy.
Oh well when it was resolved everyone went to bed.

The third day, fun and exciting day where i was part of the
cement mixers.
And in case u dont know, cement was spelled as 'semen' in bahasa language.
Then came all the cement jokes.
Mixing cement was manual as there were no machines avaliable there.
There were 2 types of cement to be mixed, one is the fine type where only
sand and dirt was used, another was around the same but had granite stones added in.
The finer one was used for putting the foundation together,
which the coarser one was used for the 80 by 80 and later on,
to place on top of the foundation.
It was fun mixing the cement with jlow and prem.
we are OCIP - Overseas Cement In Production.
There were alot of excess water in the cement mixing which flowed into
the houses near the school, hence a dam was proposed to be built
around the cement making area.
Jlo and me then began to build a damn, which will evolve into
a whole new water system tomorrow when i continue
to work on it.